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OCCUPATIONAL FATIGUE: TIME TO WAKE THE SLEEPING ELEPHANT?Presented by Ben Hutchinson, Safety Consultant

Australian Water Association North QLD Regional Conference 2013

13 August, 2013

Focus of the Presentation

+ Overview of fatigue, and how it impacts workplace safety+ How fatigue applies to the water industry + Outline of how safety is influenced by culture+ What your company can do

Exxon Valdez

Space shuttle Challenger

What is the commonality?

Fatigue-related?Bhopal Union gas leak Estonia ferry sinking

Chernobyl nuclear meltdown Three Mile Island nuclear incident

Fatigue and Sleepiness

+ Fatigue is a cumulative and gradual process that results in the form of tiredness, lack of energy, and a feeling of exhaustion

+ Sleepiness is the pressure to, or the probability of falling asleep at any particular time

…this means it is difficult to stay awake

Complexity of Fatigue Dual-responsibility for managing fatigue

Fatigue is the combined influences that:

Sleep homeostasis (pressure to sleep)

Circadian rhythm (time of day alertness)

Workload (time on task, task intensity, task complexity)

have on the basal risk of errors and accidents

Consequences of Fatigue and Sleepiness

Reduced hand-eye

coordination

Poor judgement

and decision making

Lapses in attention

Less effective communication

Microsleeps

Reduced reaction

times

Impaired self-assessment of performance

Fatigue and Sleep Loss Consequences

Sourced from: http://www.miningsafety.co.za/images/ContentImg/res_2011328155349.jpg

• Fatal road transport accidents1+20%

• The risk of vehicle accident (at 2 AM)250x

• Risk of workplace fatal accidents32x

Other Consequences

Sourced from: http://www.miningsafety.co.za/images/ContentImg/res_2011328155349.jpg

• Risk of developing or dying of CHD41.5x

• Risk of developing diabetes52x

• Yearly worldwide cost of fatigue6$80 billion

$3 billion • Yearly Australian cost of fatigue7

Accident Risk of Different Shift Types and Lengths

Higher risk

Lower risk(Retrieved from 8)

0.05% equivalence at 17-20 hours of wake

(Retrieved from 9)

Fatigue Comparison to Alcohol Intoxication

(Retrieved from 10)

Chronic sleep loss: a silent killer?

(Retrieved from 11 pg. 6)

Circadian rhythm of sleepiness

Road crash risk over 24 hours

Link between sleepiness and sleep is not always obvious.

Why does fatigue apply to the water industry?

Reversal: Why wouldn’t it?

Are any of the following questions true for your business:• Does anyone regularly undertake work for long periods, including

overtime?• Does anyone consistently work or travel between midnight and 6am?• Do work practices include on-call work, call-backs and/or sleepovers?• Does the roster differ from the hours actually worked?• Is work performed at low body clock times (between 2 am and 6 am)?

Fatigue is a universal phenomenon

Taboo Topics: Is Fatigue Your Elephant?

Shouldn’t people just ‘harden’ up?

• Sleep is a biological necessity and not a tradeable commodity.

• Sleep is so important that:– “An American Bar Association report, published in 1930,

which was cited in a later U.S. Supreme Court decision, said, ‘It has been known since 1500 at least that deprivation of sleep is the most effective torture and certain to produce any confession desired.”

• Ignorance of fatigue is no excuse.• Hardening up or normalising isn’t shown to normally occur.

Taboo Topics: Is Fatigue Your Elephant?

Can’t fatigue be managed by restricting the hours of work per day?

To a degree – but hours of work are one aspect of fatigue

Fatigue is primarily an issue of Sleep, hours awake and time of day

Fatigue includes other factors: workload, underlying health and medical issues, training and

experience, alcohol, smoking, obesity and more

Enforcing a minimum break period, for example 12 hours between shifts is not enough

Managing Safety

+ One view is ‘Swiss Cheese model’ of accident causation+ This view holds that ‘latent’ and ‘active’ failures are present + Not accepted by all, but can be a useful education tool

(adapted from http://www.accessanesthesiology.com/webFiles/PSM/images/3epid.jpg)

Addressing Fatigue

(Retrieved from 12)

What Can Your Company Do?

For instance:+ Assessment of fatigue critical tasks+ Sleep hygiene training and education+ Effective shift work scheduling+ Cross skill key roles+ Generate pride in results+ Use of positive psychology

Important to link policy to behaviour

(Retrieved from 13 pg. 13)

Fatigue Tools

© 2013 TMS Consulting

Fatigue Policy and Procedure Gap

Analysis

Operational Sleep Evaluations

Cognitive Performance and Fatigue Assessments

Workplace Demographic Assessments

Biomathematical Modelling Software

People: The solution. Not the problem.

Rather than being the main instigators of an accident, operators tend to be

inheritors of system defects created by poor design, incorrect installation, faulty

maintenance and bad management decisions. Their part is usually that of

adding a final garnish to a lethal brew whose ingredients have already been

long in the cooking. (Reason, 1990 pg. 173 14)

+ People create safety+ People are part of the solution, not the

problem

Questions

1. Between call-outs people are required to have 10-hour break, but as an employer you don’t know whether they will obtain sufficient rest when coming back to work. What are some ways to recognise fatigue, particularly via supervisors who have direct contact with workers?

Questions

2. Some workplaces advocate caffeine as a solution for fatigue. Is caffeine a viable solution?

Questions

3. Any indication of new technologies out there, access to media 24/7, use of devices leads to fatigue or reduced sleep, as it seems that younger or modern generation tend to use devices instead of sleeping?

Questions

4. What is your view on rewarding behaviours, such as people taking full rest breaks between shifts etc.?

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